It's either Black Monday part due, or it's not, or it's part of the plan, or it's people taking profits. Except I was just looking at a chart from last week. The only billionaire in the US who made money was Warren Buffett. Among the top I think thirty was what the list had. So, look, there's a lot of craziness, a lot of stuff going on, and we're going to
talk about it today. But we're going to talk about it not in the way that it's being discussed right now by a bunch of billionaires like Bill Ackman and Ackerman excuse me, and others. We're going to talk about it in the way that the media elite and others are failing to recognize. And I think makes us Ross and I much better arbiters and analysts of what's going on because we're just do I know, you think that we all make millions of dollars here, I think you'd
be very surprised. R We are firmly middle class people. And when you understand where a middle class is coming from, not everybody, but you take an honest review of what's going on out there and where people's heads are at,
which thankfully we get to do every day. Every day we talk about, you know, twenty different things, and then we get emails and people call in, and then we talk to people when we're out and about, And I think I can lay this out for you this morning as to what's going on right now where people's heads are at. And I didn't see any student analysis among like major broadcasters or some of the you know, the
stock market class. So maybe we'll just start there and then we'll get into some other stuff and it'll just kind of be a running undercurrent on the show. Okay, all right, so here we go. The vast majority of Americans look at the stock market and don't think it's real. What do they estimate? I've heard fifty percent of people are in the stock market, sixty two percent. I mean your four oh one is in the market. I but you know, honestly in the market. It's not the majority
of Americans. And that's okay because when you're younger, right, you're not doing things necessarily to achieve that you're just trying to survive, and you're recognizing and you're looking at an economy where the stock market, even though everything feels normal, can have these wild fluctuations because everybody panics up there. Meanwhile you're sitting there and you're trying to figure out
how a starter home with poor construction. Have you seen some of the videos of some of these mass builders the level equality of construction that's getting turned out, and they're looking at a starter home that if that if you adjusted for inflation, and I understand interest rates were different, all of these things. I get all of that, but again, you're working on perception and a lot of reality. And the reality is that I saw at these mass protests
all around the country over the weekend. I saw a bunch of people, and I understand that there are people listening to the show that are very much in this age bracket. And I'm not picking on you, but they were able to pull more strongly out of that age group. Okay, that was clearly going on, even if you think they're lunatics, which most of us do. And the reason they were able to do that is because you have people that are on the cusp of retirement. They have done well
for the most part, and good for them. I don't begrudge them, even if I think they're little looney tunes or a lot with some of the folks I saw.
And.
They're in this position right now, and they're going, I don't know if I'm gonna have time to recover this, even though if for a lot of people's four oh ones, it literally mirrors what it was under the last part of the Biden administration, But we don't talk about that, and what and the rest of the folks are sitting there and they look at buying their first home, especially in markets like Raleigh.
How insane.
How many of you have just got your tax adjustment and now this home, your home is worth so much more, and now you're going to pay taxes on that differential, even though you've never realized any gains from it. And
what's that going to do to your budget? And oh, by the way, when you actually went and bought the home, if you went and bought a home here recently, and even if it was a starter home compared to what it was in the nineteen seventies and eighties, but let's talk more eighties, because that's kind of math that's going to math out here. Even if you adjusted for inflation and everything else, the cost of a new home far exceeds what it was back in the day. It's not
even close and the cost of goods. Don't even get me started. And you ask yourself, how did we get here? Well, we got here with the current, with the system that had been in place when Trump came into office. And here's what I here's who I really want to hear from today. And I don't care what agr any of that. I want to hear from people who grew up and have lived their lives here in the South, in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, parts of Virginia, West Virginia.
And I want to hear what small town life was like then versus what it is now, because I think this is a huge driving force when you get out into the red parts of the country. I want to hear what happened that time that Bill Clinton decided NAFTA was a good idea. What changed in your town? What did that do to your community? And I know people would say, well, you know, it's not like people want to work in garment factor People work in garment factories
here that still exists. People want to build furniture, yes, people want to People wanted to do energy production. And you had this global mindset, these agreements with other countries where we were going to fall in line, or we were going to open trade to these uh you know, unmitigated trade, these areas that were able to undercut us because they do they they pay slave wages. And while you can sit there and you can make an argument that well it wasn't sustainable, that was your decision, and
you stuck a knife in it. So now trying to convince a bunch of people, how many small towns within the sound of my voice right now are a shell of their former selves. So you don't have to think those people are right, but you read you need to recognize that basically from gen X down, people are willing to watch it burn because it was never real. I know that sounds horrible, but I'm giving you the truth. I'm not giving you my apinion. I'm giving you the truth.
I spend far too many, far too many days and grew grew up small town myself and I and I love them. And that's that's where that's why I like to go vacation, That's where I like to that's why that's where I have friends. That's where we have interactions from people listening who are sitting there in towns like Eden, sitting in in in parts of Harnett County, sitting in parts of all over North Carolina where if you go to their main street it's dead. The industry has moved on.
The epidemic of people utilizing drugs, whether it's opiates or you know, meth or things like that, has skyrocketed because because Hope left again. You can you can disagree on the methodology, but you need to understand the mindset and the motivation. So running around all weekend screaming this is going to crash the stock market. Most most of those people don't care because the stock market never represented what
was going on financially in their lives. While people sat there and watched the brewery close up in Eden during a period of huge upswing in the stock market. Do you care what Indev's stock was doing, or do you care that you and your buddies just all lost your jobs.
I know it's not just the South either, Like what you just described is my hometown of Schenectady up in New York.
No, and to be fair, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to leave that out. I just figured that was use your pool to draw from. But yes, you're absolutely right. The rust belt and upstate.
New York absolutely like the home of ge and Main Street. We lived off Main Street. Completely different from even when I grew up, you know, in the eighties and nineties, completely different, And you know, yeah, I watch all this and I'm apart. I'm just not a I'm not I'm just not worried. After the past five years and everything we've been through, I'm just not worried. I'm sorry. I can't panic. It's not in me. Have I lost money? Listen, I do have a retirement I have a four one game. Yeah,
you and I both have four oh ones. Our company offers that. So just to be clear, we do have skin in the game. It is currently where it was last August, right, because it's twenty five percent growth year to year? Is it normal? That isn't natural. But even though I had it a retirement, I have a retirement fund or plan or whatever I did. There's no part of me that thinks that I'm ever going to be
able to retire. It's not possible. My plan, and I've said this before jokingly, but it's sort of true, is I will die over the whole die working. That's my retirement plan. There's no part of me that has any sort of like belief that I'm going to be able to retire and live alone and not have to work. That's never gonna happen for me. It never is going to happen. So I'm watching all this happen and have
I lost money, Yes? But do it I feel like the joker looking at the big pile of money marching it burn correct because, like you said, my house payment has gone up because everything's building up around it, and they're increasing taxes and it's ridiculous. Last year went up for me. It's a lot. It's a lot of money. Every month they went up like three hundred dollars a month for me. There's a lot of money because I don't make a lot of money. So is it concerning?
At is concerning? But I really there's no part of me. I can't force the panic. I'm not panicking. I believe that it's Listen, I would not be surprised that by the midterms the Dow is up over fifty thousand.
Well, I saw that. Lutnick.
I think was predicting that. I think that that is that's aspirational, But I don't believe that it's less than it is or was two weeks ago, right before we had the two consecutive and the end of the week, and then whatever happens today. I refuse to believe that. But also I that's not the numbers that you and I and others really are are dry the concern.
What's going on. It's the cost of things.
And inflation and the willingness of the previous administration as well as basically all the administrations going back to do you know who the last Democrat was to lower taxes LBJ. So if you want to make that our starting point, we can. Ever since we have seen this and then it kicked into high gear under NAFTA and Clinton and everything that was going on there, it just yeah, here
we go. Bought one hundred and forty k house for in twenty twenty two and just sold it for two hundred and fifty in rural Johnston County.
Yes, right, and then you're going to sell it and then you get into a house that's like, you know, so much more expensive with a higher interest rate, and you're gonna be paying that way into retirement.
Right, you have to live somewhere, So what have you really gained?
One thing I keep thinking about is how I keep thinking about ross Pro in the nineties, watching him. Yeah, ross Pro in the nineties, watching him, Yeah, with all the charts, and I'm like, man, that dude was right, Yeah he was. Remember him going on and on about NAFTA and how it would completely hollow out the American workforce and the manufacturer action.
Yeah, so that's what I want to hear. I want to hear your stories. How many of you grew up in one of these towns? Could be schenected? He could be could be somewhere right, you know, right here in the listening areas of North Carolina, western North Carolina. How hollowed out is that? Go to the town of Sparta, you know, I like to go up there. Talked about it here on the show. Go to the town of Sparta. I'm not picking on.
Sparta, but Sparta is a shell of its former self.
We can't agree that the middle class, the way things are going at this point, it's not sustainable.
No, not, not the costs that you were seeing, Not for middle America.
It's not doable.
So so watching the billionaire class and the stock market class get into these screaming matches and the and this chicken little stuff, I don't tell it carry and I, By the way, do you know what Bill Bill Ackerman was most famous for.
This guy is like, I'm I'm investing in America.
This is the line that like, if I invest in stocks, I'm investing in America.
I don't believe that.
How many of you have worked in a company that was a publicly traded company where it was nothing but maximize profit for the shareholders and it decimated parts of your company or your business, and God help you. A venture capitalist came in and Bill Ackerman's famous because he attempted to short one of one of the companies where they go around and sell door to door. It's a little bit of a pyramid scheme, but Amway. It was an Amway. It was one of them. He attempted to
short him, unsuccessfully. There's a whole documentary on this. He was betting against the futures of everybody who worked there or made money there. Doesn't mean he was wrong, But don't give me this holier than now. I only invest in America. Investing in America is not necessarily the stock market.
It's investing in an economic system that provides the ability of people to not have to lose their damn minds and stress every day because they can't figure out how they're going to make ends meet even though they have two you have two people working. I mean, that's insane to me. The transition from a single payer household that was comfortable could make ends meet. Yes, we didn't have quite the level of luxuries to you know, to expend money on.
But you could feasibly get by, you know, and you did. And then two people entered the workforce.
Full time, and you're struggling far more than the generation before you.
And that's not in dispute.
This generation and then the one cropping up are are worse off than the generations before them.
These changes had to be made, in my opinion. But do you think the issue is that band aid was ripped off too fast?
That is, that's the only fair argument here, but also one of the things, and you're seeing it right now. Well, and I believe this and this is just me. I don't know if you've seen what's happened in Japan and China overnight they got absolutely hammered. China stock market lost ten percent, Japan not much better. Japan had a breaker, I'm not kidding, like a fuse bust and they suspended training trading. Nobody believes that. It's a crazy story.
They had like a water pipe burst, No, a.
Breaker of some sort. I'm not making this up.
Japan suspended trading while they were getting hammered because I don't know, a breaker went out.
Right, But it's like counting the votes and being like, we have to stop because the water pipe broke.
They sent Bob downstairs with a sledge hammer, like hits something electrical. I don't know, probably not Bob, it's Japan. But they sat Yashimoto downstairs with a hammer and they're like, hit that thing, Bro, and he did because he's a ninja. But whatever. And what what Trump is betting on is those leaders panic, panic, and agree to what he wants. And it's kind of working because the US can take a lot more kick in the teeth than these smaller countries.
That's what you have. So you have people that are sitting there that are not invested to the extent that these billionaires are, and they're willing to be the joker staring at the pile of money. And if they don't understand this, then they're not good an analysts.
We'll be back.
How many of you support construction trade either you do you work directly in it. Your truck drivers, you drive materials back and forth, you work in industry that produces the parts that are necessary for construction.
How many?
And development too, So you have people that deal with water right, the you know, the pipelines, the direct the people guys, the guys who go out and do directional boring, which I've done, which is which when you're one of the shovel guys at the very beginning, sucks till you can run a piece of machinery. But it's.
How many of you.
Have a financial interest in that? What do you think seven trillion? If I don't know, if you heard the bottom of the hour newscasts there, the Trump administration says, thus far they've received commitments for seven trillion dollars in in investment, so basically establishing businesses inside of the US which are going to require buildings, they're going to require
you know, manufacturing lines. Automation in many instances, because I know people are like, well, they're just going to automate stuff.
Well, I don't know.
If if you think China is not really automated, then you don't you've never seen inside a Chinese plant, and you should watch some video. Yeah, they have a lot of people, but the majority of it is automated, especially when it comes to the production of big things like iPhones. Right,
what do you think? And and countries are going to be scrambling to make those investments because only once they've started production and that stuff is being produced in the US so they can sell to US consumers will they get the full amount of terror relief unless the countries
want to drop tariffs completely. What do you think a rapid rush to build six trillion in investment in infrastructure does for the wages and the profits If you're a small business owner or even a medium to large business owner in that slice of the economy, construction is going to get expensive. Now does that have impacts on people want to build new homes? Maybe not, because the residential
guys are necessarily going to turn into commercial guys. But the people who work for them may be more incentivized to go work from these companies who are begging for workers and having to pay higher wages so they can construct these plants. And if you're a company who wants to produce a manufacturing plant of any sort, are you going to stick it in downtown Raleigh or Charlotte or Greensboro.
Where are you going to put it? To go somewhere where you have interstate or close by access for the purpose of shipping, where the wages at this point are not so excruciating that it takes a further cut of what you're doing. And I can give you one hundred towns in North Carolina that could facilitate that. And you're gonna put it there, and people there are gonna have an opportunity to work there. And for those saying, well, they're not going to work there, you don't know small towns.
You don't You don't know small towns. There's a town in Minnesota that I used to go down to Coldwood, Nona, Minnesota, and it's a It's the one of the things that helps that town hang on, not only because it has quick access to I ninety. It's right on the river, right across the river from Wisconsin down by Lacrosse and whatnot. And they have Fastenal has one of their main facilities there, and I, I don't know, I couldn't tell you the number of people I know who work there.
Are they getting rich?
No?
Are they working in a job that they're able to support their families because fast and All continues to have this large operation there, and many of you in the construction trade, you know fasten All. Yeah, all over the country they got places and that's where you order your construction supplies and stuff from. And it literally keeps that town. Trucking man sounds like that they're going to be banging away and Fasten All. From a corporate standpoint, we probably
do pretty well. So these are the conversations that people aren't having. And something's or the chance of something's better than nothing in the minds of so many people. That's the reality. That's why there is this disconnect with the conversation that is going on. And this is why I'm wanting to hear from you, because you guys are the ones who can tell those stories. I didn't grow up in rural North Carol. I grow rural Wyoming. And beef's
a pretty sustainable industry. But nobody's getting rich, not really, but for a lot of towns, they don't have that backbone. And now you don't live there anymore because you had to move away because you need a job opportunities and you wish nothing more, maybe to be able to live in that town that you grew up in. Why shouldn't they have a chance And they didn't have a chance as to where we were going. So the only thing here's my theory on the band aid thing, and then
we'll get into calls because ross po's the question. And I think that that's a legitimate argument. But I think people fail to understand Trump's motivation.
One. You want the.
When people are panicking, they're making decisions that might be more agreeable to you, and that's business stuff, and Trump loves business stuff. But people people who are tweeting things like Trump's destroying his own livelihood, see he lost money. You think that money is the most important thing to Trump? And I'm not saying that do altruistic. I want you to hear me out. You think money is the most important thing to Trump. Money has been to this point
because of what it represents. It's not the money, it's the power, and more specifically, it's the name recognition. And I think that Donald Trump would would happily lose half of his fortune if he is forever seen as the man who saved the American economy. Does that make sense to me to you, because he's got an ego and you can't buy that. You can't buy that you're the person who saved a country, as I know, as weird as that sounds, I feel like that is far more
valuable to him, far more valuable. Or else why run for president at all and continue to slog through this considering the financial hit you're taking, because this is more important to him. So understand his motivations. You don't have to think he's correct, but you have to understand where people are coming from so that you can have discussions. And you need to understand where the majority of people,
younger people are kind of coming from. Why do you think that there wasn't a bunch of twenty somethings out at those protests. I don't think they've ideologically changed, and I understand as will. They're not being paid to be there. Look, everyone's not being paid to be there, but some people are or or and clearly are with you. When you see these groups and you see these these text messages, you get it's like become a can or become an influencer for two hundred dollars for the Democrat Party. I
got one of those. Those are real and it's a it's a way of not saying you're paying people for a vote, kind of doing it. So there's a lot at play here, George, what's up, Good morning morning.
You were asking about housing process in nineteen sixty four. I'm eighty two years old. In nineteen sixty four, I bought a three bedroom half with a fool basement twelve hundred square feet and are a three quarter of an acred lock thirteen thousand thousand dollars.
Okay, okay.
At that time I went to About two years later, I went to work as a plumber's helper, and I own a plumbing company now in North Carolina. I want to work for a plumbing company A dollar twenty five cents an hour, I'll make over fifty an hour. Nine yeah, five way, my number one man more than I'm made well.
And that's that's this good business right there. Let me ask you a question, if they if they were rushing to put seven trillion in infrastructure development into the US and it started shooting off into North Carolina and many of these towns. I don't know which community you're, sir, but in your mind and your business mind, having done this half a century or more, you have to assume that that would be a net benefit for people that are in the trade, such as yourself.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, I think that people are failing to see this well, George. I appreciate the call this morning. These this is the stuff that I'm talking about. I'm not telling you it's right or wrong, but you have to understand the motivations of folks.
Right, and you're talking about the younger people like the Zoomers and stuff, who are just sitting out in the world. And you've got a rent for over two thousand dollars craziness a month, and I can't even comprehend that. I think back in like ninety nine, my first rent I think was like four hundred, five hundred dollars a month, and that was that was you know, I'm just starting out. That was fine. I could do that.
I called it to ten. I lived on glen Wood for eight hundred. Yeah, and it wasn't as I had a nicer apartment. I don't like studios, I'm sorry, but yeah.
And even getting like an old beater car. I saw people talking about this, a thread about this on an X this weekend, and you know, it's hard to find one of these run down five hundred dollars beater cars because you get cash for clunkers. Exactly. Yes, they won't pass emissions because.
They wanted to get green and they didn't care who it hurt. This is the death by a thousand cuts that people remember. They remember that time you decimated the entire use car market, and now it's trying to get an entry level cars cost prohibitive in many instances, and they wanted it that way so they could get mass
transits transit. And they got those ideas because they in a globalist mindset, went over to Davos, or they went to Kyoto, the Kyoto Accords, and they sat down as a bunch of world leaders and said, this is what we're going to do, and everyone can just deal with it because they'll have mass transit, even though mass transit in Japan is far easier than mass transit in a country the size of the United States, and our leaders didn't care. And people remembered that.
And you have the argument like, oh, well, if you bring back these jobs, these you know the younger generation won't want to do them. Well, a lot of them are forced right now. Do you think they'd rather take a job at McDonald's nothing against that, but or a job at a factory doing something.
I mean there's oh, it's like the factories. I just told you. Maybe it's a job at a factory. But maybe because you went you got a CAD degree of some sort, you're the one designing the fact.
Or working in the machines at the factory.
Correct, correct, Yes, And if you've ever worked at a factory and there's like the dude who can come in and actually do the mechanical and all your stuff. That guy's not making minimum wage to check the truck. Guys like that show up in So there are there are opportunities. I don't know what it's going to look like, but I understand why people are willing to sit there and go, this needs to be done, or I'm willing to watch what happens because they're going, how could it be worse?
I can't even afford to do anything.
But also mean, our economy could be completely decimated, or the supply chain, right if China says we don't want to give you this or that anymore, or the semiconductors in Taiwan, right, Yeah, but.
The way that you I don't know, if you know this that happened.
Before, right, I was saying during COVID, right, yeah.
Yeah, And so a lot of people back then went go, this is not a good position to be in. And not just during COVID. We've had conflicts all over the world. Remember, we didn't have relations with China until the late set, I mean really not until the eighties. We only had a president go in there in the seventies and it was such a big damn deal. So how were things fine before the you know, mid eighties and really late eighties, and then all of a sudden they weren't because of
a globalist mindset. I don't I'm not using the conspiratorial way. I'm just that that is an accurate description of it. And for too long people have watched others go along with it, and then they bore the brunt of it every damn time.
Say good morning, case it, thanks for taking my call. So, first thing, I don't think the band aid has been ripped off too fast. The uh there was a lot of blood underneath the band aids, so it had to be taken off. The other side of that is is the all this stock market crash just shows me how much money wasn't invested in America, and like all our four oh one K money is in these foreign governments. So I mean, I don't understand uh uh. And the fdi C could ensure our four to one case.
To where it's not in the foreign governments, but it's clearly dependent upon them being friendly with us.
So I think it's yeah, you know what I'm saying.
And I do, Yeah, I do the construction trade, and you know, and and it's it seems to be booming now, especially this year. There seems to be a lot more building going starting. And if you look at the Toyota plant and the Wolf's Wolf Speed plant in uh, I think it's Chatham and Randolph Counties, right. People are clamoring to work there. I mean those Toyota is paying so well, thirty seven dollars an hour to start, the offer training and everything.
Oh my god, I have capacity. They have the what's the in Chattanooga. I think they have thirty percent capacity being unused. So like some of this stuff is quick. But to your point, if and it's not just guys that are literally right in the construction trade, I mean, can you imagine seven trillion in investment dollars clamoring for people to build facilities that that.
I can't even seven trillion dollars. I'm starting to rupew. I can't even fathom eleven trillion dollars. It's such a huge amount of money.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, kidding, Yeah, absolutely. And let me say this because somebody sent me an email and it just it just basically was like okay, but like, uh, you don't you don't benefit from construction trade. Sure, I do, absolutely one. I yes, you know, utilize them. But from a from a business standpoint, if there are if there is a huge uptick in people that are necessary to do these projects or staff these facilities, how do those companies recruit.
One of the ways that they recruit.
You hear the ads that have run on this radio station for years, whether they need people for medical studies or they need people for jobs when they expand we run ads like that all the time. So now you're buying advertising on my show because we probably had the biggest swath of people that are in the construction trades within the market, and so we're the right radio station to advertise for those people. And so if you need a bunch of builders for something, or you need a
bunch of workers for something. This is a pretty good place to advertise, and so now I have received some sort of renuneration in an ancillary way for this very thing. Here. Again, I may not be right. I'm doing the analysis as best I can, but I feel like all of my years and my childhood where I grew up in Ross's childhood with what he saw happened to his town. And I'm arguing against people who do things like post tweets that when they went to a Walmart outside of DC
they could smell the humanity. What insight do those people have to what's going on in rural North Carolina? And the answer is nothing because they detest them and people picked up on that with the decisions that they made. All Right, I only got about a minute here, so ra we'll get into more of it. I'm going to start the hour with it. I want to play you a piece of audio here real quick, which although yeah, actually let me do this because I won't have enough
time to then add what I need to. We don't know whether we know how billionaire and stock market dudes feel about it.
They're not pleased.
But I'm just trying to provide the perspective or provide the opportunity so that people can talk about how they feel about it.
And I'm sorry.
The conversations that I've had with folks, whether it's on social media or just friends of mine in general, is many of them have watched their whole life in some instances, decisions that were made that clearly were not in their
best interest by people claiming that they were. And they watched the expansion of this global thing that folks wanted to partake in, where instead of saying okay, but understand that we're the swing and you know what in the room because we were, we koutout and we did things where we decided we would take on the majority of defense spending for partner organizations that primarily benefit Europe, and
that doesn't make sense. They saw all this doze stuff that still nobody's offered any apologies or explanation for, and all of a sudden, they can't well up a single ounce of sympathy for a guy who's got six vacation homes in a yacht. They don't care, even though it's not as cut and dry in that, and they do have skin in the game if they have four to ones but they've decided the situation is so broken they're
willing to take this drastic thing. And and if Trump's wanted to do it all at once, arguably it's a it's a negotiating position because we can withstand the storm better than any other country. And so in a negotiating standpoint, if you can get the person, you're negotiating against a panic that does nothing but benefit you. So you know,
that'll be part of the conversation. And I did ask, especially if you're out there and you remember what has happened to all of these communities, so many of these communities and continues to happen. Look, if you live in rural North Carolina, are are you happy that the state has become very business friendly? And you have seen you
have seen a lot of growth. The problem is, it's not growth that has benefited you unless you're willing to uproot your life and move to RTP or to Charlotte, or to a handful of other places in the state. And you're asking yourself, when are you gonna make decisions that might benefit me? This is what that looks like
to you. And I hope you're right. I hope you're right because the decimation of small town North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia Schenectady, which is not a small town, but uh, you know, communities that aren't the you know, the big ones within their states have been left to the side because that's how this globalist thing works. That's how it works.
Those are the folks that are feeding at the trough and people are going enough, I can't afford to pay these prices that these huge conglomerates which are all in on this globalism stuff so that they can essentially, you know, do worldwide business, which I don't begrudge them. If you're Pepsi Cola and you are Pepsi or Coke and you know some of the really big players internationally, I understand that.
But it hasn't trickled down radio. The what they pay radio people is not even close to what they paid them forty years ago, and that's due to a lot of things, probably less globalism. But it just shows that you have these evolving markets and then people are going to start wondering, well, why is that happening. Within the media industry, it can be fracturing too much consumer choice.
Within the manufacturing industry, it's it's squarely at the feet of this idea that this is what we're going to do. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna offshore all of these things. How many of you have had a portion of the
company you work for offshore? Part of it? That was because we had a scenario where it was it was financially it was a good fiduciary decision to do that, right, they made a judgment call, and whenever those pro when it was time to take profits, it was those who were the stockholders who were the one that primarily benefited.
And people saw that when this is insane.
I'm busting my ass sixty hours a week for this company with the overtime, and yet I just they offered me a thirty two cent pay raise over the last three years.
Per hour, and yet our stock split last year.
How does that work?
That's who's that's who's steering this right now, and you all better recognize because you're arguing with the wrong people. However, it does not mean we do not have news that we do not have news that has nothing to do with that, and just gave me a big grin over the weekend, even though I know nothing about it. What the hell is the Minecraft movie? What am I missing? And how did that thing make three hundred million dollars? And how is Rachel Zegler not on suicide?
I will tell you this much. And we've been planning on this because it's the weekend after Lincoln's birthday. We're going to go see it today. We've had this, we have our tickets, We're ready to go. Road Link is super excited.
Because everyone's like, the movie's really bad, but the kids really love it, which is fine, Like that's not new.
Right, it doesn't need to be the Godfather or something. It's a kid, kid's movie about my kids, and I fully expect to sit down and not understand any of it, even though I've watched my kid play Minecraft for like ten years.
I saw some video of like a Frankenstein looking thing on a chicken, and then if they had like kids were losing their crap. They had to throw a bunch out of a theater because they were, and like people are just chanting along to the whole movie.
Which is fine. Yeah, they're saying there's it's like an experience that they're saying for the kids going to see it, and it's you see these videos of they called a chicken jockey? Is that what it's in the game that I guess you can riote or something, And that might be totally off on that, But when they show that, I've seen so many videos like this. It's the reveal and it's Jack blackowing it's the chicken jockey or whatever he says, and the crowd goes crazy.
There means some wrestler actually in there, who's I have no idea. I'm with you, man, is that the game? I thought the game was digging holes and stea, I know that in a ring.
Yeah, but yeah, Lincoln is super excited about it, super excited, can't wait.
So this movie, this movie is gonna be three hundred million dollars on a pittance of a budget, and everyone universally agrees for the most part, it's not good. And it did three times the opening weekend that snow White.
No, it did more than that. They did more than three times, yeah, four times.
Now, the studio was expecting it to be a hit because of what it is, right, it's the most but not this.
I saw I saw the piece that because it's Warner Brothers, right, and they were thinking, what one hundred and ten million, was there, hopeful?
Yeah, and then we had three three hundred million, and that is to be what they were expecting or projecting. Is fine because it is the most popular, most downloaded video game of all time Minecraft. Oh wow, is it okay?
I tried to play it once because I'm like, I gotta see what this is. I got so bored within Like.
There might be older people in the audience that still don't And I'm sure you do know what it is because of your grandchildren, but still might not understand. Just imagine a digital version of Legos where you can build whatever you want and you can make moving parts, and you can recreate your favorite things on the TV. Like Lincoln, I know, has built the Museum of Natural Sciences downtown and Raleigh. He's built that a million times. He's built mansion all right.
So and I don't mean any offense here, but I have the thing I thought about that game because you told me Lincoln like it is. I said, I bet that game. I bet kids on the spectrum.
Love this game.
Yeah yeah, yeah, so that's a fair assumption. Yeah, And there's an adventure mode of creative mode. There's different things you can do, but you're talking about a generation of kids brought up on this game, and now it's in the big screen, so of course they're going to want to go see it. And let's face it, remember when they made movies that were targeted our generation. Remember when The Wizard came out.
I remember the first time I sat down I saw a super mar Brother. So that was the first time in the theater that I ever felt disappointment. Yeah, I was like, what is this because it was nothing like the game?
Nothing like the game, but like the little little kids stuff. Let's face it. You know, my mom had been that's a horrible movie. Why do you want to watch that for the twentieth time. Oh, I'm super like because he's going to Reno and he's gonna win the tournament. Mom, he's gonna win the turn.
No, my parents took me to these movies like, yeah, I sat down and saw I remember going to The Rocketeer with teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the first live action movie. That was an incredible experience and that movie still holds up. That was a great movie. My parents took me to that.
And the thing that I saw of parents who were giving reviews is they said there was no politics in it, and there wasn't you know, they didn't try to shoehorn any although that's not totally accurate. Isn't Jack Black in it? And he had that whole thing with his partner down in Australia.
Yeah, he had a thing where his partner, like you know, was.
Joked about hoping Trump they don't miss Trump next time.
Right, And then Jack Black sort of had a falling out with him and they canceled that tour because I'm sure they immediately had people calling them going, what the hell are you doing?
Yeah, I think Jack Black properly recovered because with him, he didn't push back right away, but I think he just it was caught him so off guard, even though that's clearly who that Kyle Gas guy is, and maybe Jack Black is so I but no, I agree, Yeah, it wasn't. There wasn't a controversy that was going to be chock full of like weird politics where they were trying to indoctrinate kids and people.
They clearly made money from that.
That's why the Mario Brothers made movie too, because it stayed clear of politics. That's how it was. It's it's just the source material. And I don't know what they've built upon this move, because you know, what is the source material of Minecraft. If you're playing it in the venture mode or whatever, you do have the different villains and things. You have to survive, and you have to
survive through the night. There's a day and night cycle and during the day it's peaceful and at night the monsters come out and you got to survive and see how long you can last. And there is the final boss called the under Dragon. But this is all common knowledge that I'm sure you know absolutely.
Hey, guys, Minecraft's huge, get with the times. I play it with my kid. It's been around for years, and it's not political. That's fine. I don't have Look, I want to understand Ross playing. I just wanted to see what the hype was about, and I probably aged out of it, so I don't know.
Whatever.
Did they get any political indoctrination to tweets you this weekend? So for those who don't know, Ross took the fam up to tweetsy a little cabin up there.
Yeah, I mean we were like frontiersman, Really.
Did you settle something?
I'm not gonna lie. So we're sitting there and I'm really feeling like We rented the cabin, which was like five minutes from tweet see, like super close and blowing Rock, and I felt like Davy Crockett.
I felt like, wait, did you kill a bar with your bare hand? I felt like Lewis and Clark, you know, Abraham Lincoln. And then I hear like this beeping, and I'm like, the sauna is going off. The sauna had a Oh no, the cabin was nice. Huh oh, it's super nice.
Yeah. Did you go to the basement and pick a toy or no?
No basement?
Oh no, no, no, no, no, was it a cabin, no basement in the woods? Right, it was a cabin that was in the woods. You didn't go to the basement pick a toy. That's what you do, all right. So no basement on that one. So you had a sauna you were roughing at like Lewis. Yeah.
I was sitting there and I felt like my forefathers, you know, and I really felt this sort of you know, just this grit.
Uh.
And then the doorbell rang and it was the door dash and the food. The food. We got food from a local Blowing.
Rock, a Native American guide.
Yeah.
So we got out back and the Outback was so good of the Outback Steakhouse of Blowing Rocks, so.
Well, they don't have one.
They have one in Blowing.
Rock they did.
Yeah, to do right, it's got to be on the freeway.
But tweets he was so nice. We're probably gonna go again. Lincoln had an amazing time. He was smiling the entire time. The people, there's a lot of the employees there were so amazing and understanding. I couldn't we couldn't have asked for a better time. You're talking about one of the happiest kids on the planet during that span of time while we were there. It was such a great time and we went on everything, absolutely everything.
Well, how much is Jack because I know nothing.
I know.
There's the train because you can see it from the road.
The one part everybody's like always gonna he's gonna love the train, you know, Sony memories. The one part that we were sort of like, eh, the train. The ride was great, but in the middle of it, there's like an interactive thing where it stops and there's like you know, rob yeah, and there's like a train robbery. It went on a bit too long for us, where Lincoln was like can we just get to the top so I can ride some rides. And that's probably the only the
only critique he would have. It was so fun, and I went on things that never normally would go on, like the thing that takes you way up in the air, looks like a piston and then drops you repeatedly. Right, I don't want to go on that thing, you know. I don't like like roller coasters, and I don't like the rides that go up high.
But you're a people mover guy.
Yeah, completely, Yeah, So I enjoyed the train. I was like, this is not long enough, but.
Good time there, so fun.
It was great.
So you got you're already talking about going back there, were.
Thinking about getting a season pass because it's only like three hours away.
No, it's and it's and it's you know, it's highway. I mean you just you just take boom boom boom and then uh you got that highway through uh up to boom there. So it's it's pretty quick. I'll show you cut around road too, so you can avoid boone next time, save you fifteen minutes. All right, all right, let me grab a Jamal's call real quick here. All right, Jamal just got a two three minutes.
What's up, Hey, Ksey. I just want to say this real quick, Casey. I grew up in the nineteen eighties, and I've always tried to get people understand that Donald Trump is a nineteen eighties man. I grew up in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. We had textile plants like Textifi, Rocky Mountain Mills, we had Stony Creek, Wilson used to have Lee Stratus genes and Levi. All those textile plants
are gone. Why because they opened up the markets, They went to cheaper labor and went to countries where they didn't have to follow the exact strain Iss safety requirements they do here in America. When Donald Trump didn't set it back in nineteen eighty eight about how countries was ripping us off. Then if you really look at the Oprah interview with him, this is literally the Donald Trump
that we have. That's why I for them. I knew in these tests what he is trying to do is he know we still have these plants here in North Carolina, here in New York, and they're in New York and wiscons and all these places, and he's trying to force these companies to come back, because truth be told, if they really wanted to stop this, not President Trump, If they wanted to stop this, all they had to say is the United States would not import products made by
slave labor. We will. And if you are a company in the United States and you are in a country, if you if you're an American company and you are having your products made in a country that pays people less than four dollars and twenty five an hour, which was minimum wage back when in nineteen ninety four, means use because.
I hear what you're saying, But that gets a little dicey. Let me tell you what in a lot of countries three let's say it's three dollars an hour, is in no way slave labor would be higher than the prevailing wage that exists.
So you'd have to have a lighting.
Scale as to figure out what constitutes slave labor.
And it could be.
And but you could do it as simply as looking at the cost of living in those countries to make that determination.
But some people would say that's a little heavy handed.
But picking a fixed number doesn't translate to a lot of countries, is all that I'm saying.
But see, but But here's my pushback in AINKC. The reason why they did that, where they went to these countries where they had two thousand, regardless of what their costs of living wage is, regardless of what their couset of living is. If you would have held them the four twenty five, that would have made those countries and those people a lot better to where they could be able to.
I'm sorry, I mean to cut you out. I totally think that is the net impact and thank you for the call. That is the net impact of tariffs. That's where we are. So anyway, we'll get more calls and much more to come here in just a few minutes here on the CaCO Day radio program, the Cacoday Rate program, and you know, here's the thing, and then we'll grab a couple of calls. The disingenuous nature of and I look,
I understand this is gonna happen. Like all of these quote unquote analysts pretending why they didn't understand this may be so mad on Friday, they're like, oh, look at these islands that are included on the list. These guys are idiots. Only penguins live on those islands. Do you know why they include I immediately knew why immediately. And I'm not some financial analyst. I'm just a dude who pays attention a little bit but also understands the manipulation that happens.
All right, So the reason that.
You include islands that may be classified as protectorates or you know whatever, maybe their own standalone country is you have to you have to everybody has to be on notice all at once, because if not, if you only, if you only decide to tear off half the countries, then the decision is not whether to restore things to the United States. Does market want to be in but is there a workaround that is advantageous. And for all the jokes about the what was the Johnston and whatever?
These atolls that are essentially out there that are technically Australian protectorates but not really this is like New Caledonia and stuff like that, is they have different tariff levels. And yes, I know what you're saying. You're saying, well that that doesn't explain an island with penguins on it. Well, what if I told you that that island with penguins on it had listed trade in twenty twenty three of millions of dollars. Do you think it's because the penguins
opened a plant. No, they're too busy running around stealing eggs or whatever.
Which remember we.
Learned that with the two gay penguins in the zoo, where they're like, oh, they just kept stealing eggs. They want to be parents, and I'm like, they're penguins, bro, I don't know if it's as deep as that, So how would that happen would happen? Because you know it's like drop shipping. Okay, in fact, let me let me let him explain it to you.
Uh the uh yeah, here we go.
All right.
So Margaret Brennan, of course she's doing the interview. She thinks she's got Lutnick, right, she got him in a box. Oh you guys use AI. That's what they literally accused him of using AI. And the guy just laughs at her, as he should. And I'm sorry, Margaret Brennan or somebody around her knows this, and they're being dishonest by pretending they don't.
Like, why are the Hurd and MacDonald Islands, which don't export to the United States and are quite literally inhabited by penguins, why do they face a ten percent tariffs. Did you use AI to generate this?
No, she's being intentionally dishonest. She's being she knows and she's being intentionally dishonest. And that's what's gonna make this even harder because all these people are going to continue to lie to you.
No, the idea, Look, the idea.
Is why are they on the list?
Off?
Because the idea what happens is it if you leave anything off the list, the countries that try to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to US, any country, like we had tariffs.
The President put tariffs.
On China right in twenty eighteen, and then what China started doing is they started going through other countries to America. They just built through other countries through America.
And so the.
President knows that he's tired of it.
And he's going to fix that.
So basically he said, look, I can't let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them. So he ended those loopholes, these ridiculous loopholes. And now what he's trying to say is I'm going to fix the trade deficit of the United States of America. It's a national security issue. We need to make medicine. We need to make seven conductors, we need to make ships, we need to have steel in aluminum. Come on, we need the greatness of America
to actually be built in America. And he's tired of getting ripped off by the rest of the world.
Yeah, it's just had to explained to her, and like it's this is so simple. This is so because China. Remember, China is willing to do whatever they're willing to do. They've been manipulating the steel market for years, manipulating their own currency. Because here's what happens when China suffers financially, and I have no sympathy for him.
They have so over extended themselves.
The brunt of the financial kick in Sri Lanka was a result of China took the majority of that. From an outside investor standpoint, they took her right on the chin. And when China's economy flails and they're entering very dark times, do you know what happens to world currency investments? US T bills? Look it up every time you have had China or any of the major economies downward trend. You know, when Soros was able to come in and others like him. He was not the only one to do it and
short the British pound. It was a mass influx out of investments that had been in parts of Europe that came through to the US.
Because people, when things.
Are crazy, people crave security, and there has been no instrument as secure as a US Treasury bond in modern history. There may be better deals at times, but not when China's on the ropes, because China really is the number two player with that stuff. So I mean, this is it's it's almost an act of war what he's doing to China because he's putting China in a box. Man, they're in a box. I don't know how they're going
to react, who knows. But if you're gonna, if you're gonna just pretend that you're not even attempt to understand it, then I don't want to hear you voice concerns about it because you may know it. You're just sitting there doing penguin memes, which were funny. I even retweeted one, but they're not reality. The reality is if let's say that rossis Stan is some country and they're dangerous because they're always trying to dominate the worlds, you're all going to.
Pay all right.
See that's literally their country slogan. Right do you want to do you want to do business with them?
Do you want to know? You don't want a better important comany?
You bet well?
Okay, but let's say that America is like, all right, we're not gonna so that Rosa Stan comes over to uh, you know, Caseyville, which is it doesn't have a stand in it, so it's a lot better than like, hey man, we can't get our goods in there. How about if we grease the skids and then you export it from your country because you have very low low tariffs, and now you're a drop shipper. It's drop shipping, that's what's happening.
It's essentially drop shipping, right and and Chinese fentanyls suppliers do this where because they realize if stuff comes in from China, they really scrutinize it through the ports of entry. But if you want to mail a box and it's actually coming from Italy, because China was able to have these close connections with Wuhan and northern Italy, which is why COVID went to Italy first. After China, then all of a sudden, there's less scrutiny there. That's what you saw on a global scale.
All right, Lee, what's up?
Thanks?
Hey, guys that were all doing this morning?
Pretty good, sir, just analyzing the entirety of the world economics system and making fun of Rachel's for you.
I hear you, man, I Hey, I First, I want to say I appreciate what you guys do. Listen to you every day, and us North Carolinians really appreciate what you guys do and everybody around the country. But I got something a little lighthearted to talk to you about this morning.
Ross.
I heard you took get your family to three three railroads this morning obvious weekend.
Yep, did y'all have a good don dude?
It was so nice and yeah, like I said, the people that worked there were so understanding and welcoming, because sometimes when you go to a place like that and your child is autism, you don't know what to expect. You could go one way or the other. And it was fantastic.
Man.
Just that hit me real hard and my heart. My wife is the special education director at Northfield Strict In School in Saulisbury, North Carolina, and just doing God's work working with kids with special needs. And you know, we love these kids. I mean, they're they are they're just like every other kid, and they need a safe place to go. Man, And we see Railroad also holds a place in my heart. I've been going my entire life.
My mom and my aunt were both in the Magic Show and tang Can Girls, and the employees there have been great since since I can remember. And my boys, Oliver and Maverick, they love it, man.
They dress up like cowboys, they get the red bandits every time.
Man.
It's and it's just a great place for kids to go and have fun and be kids and and live that American dream of you know, conquering the West or conquering the frontier, and it just it's truly a great place. And I'm very happy that you guys had a good time and your son had a blast and and a man, it just say here it makes me feel great, feel good about this state and something that's part of this state doing well and people are still enjoying going to it.
That just makes me really happy. As in North Carolinia.
Sure, you're making it hard for me to continue to have my beef with it, you understand, that right.
Yeah, Well, you know, Texas claims to be the big cowboys state, but let me tell you, North Carolina were cowboys first and and we uh and if it weren't for us, we wouldn't have Texas. So you got to remember that cowboys were in North Carolina way before they were in in Texas.
So would you know, you want a fun fact, sir, just as from somebody who's kind of up on the cowboy lord? Do you know the first group that was that was essentially called cowboys where they were and they were cattle.
Punched a telling, get me wrong?
Yeah, Florida, I remember, correct, Florida?
Was it Florida? Yeah?
I hate that.
Well I don't.
I don't have any beef with Florida to be honest, but yeah, that is a little upsetting that Florida first.
Cowboys because that was really the land used that you know that they can thanks for the call therely, I got to go to weather, but that was the you know, that's what they were using that because it wasn't really you know, until we were from a modern perspective to really dive into Florida and create the Florida that we understand it was.
It was really good for livestock.
So yeah, anyway, raced agic, he's a cowboy. You standing by maybe hey at that just checking their phone. I'm like, oh my gosh, are we on the phone?
You never know where?
Right?
So uh okay, all right, happy Monday. How you doing this?
Yeah?
This fine day? You know, doing well? I'm happy.
I want to I'm doing better and yes, yes, and I put that on the players. Unfortunately, that was sloppy at the end the game.
Saw that that call on Cooper flag was.
Yeah, that was too bad.
But you got to make free throws.
Too, So you do you doing that, especially when you need them. I know that from experience. I missed too with a we were down by I forget it.
I miss it was yeah, my whole bracket, but I'm sure it did.
I don't know if anybody has.
Houston Florida.
Yeah, well I have Florida. My other bracket is well.
You're okay, okay, Now I didn't realize it. I didn't realize Houston was h that's strong of a of a basketball program, but I guess so.
Yeah, well, you know there are I don't know, I look this up. There are a SEC teams that can beat them in the final four.
You know that.
No, yeah, yeah, okay, it's weird.
Couldn't get it done?
No, no, yeah, what's up? Yeah?
Uh?
Damp and if anything, we get wetter before we get drier in the short term, meaning today, rains now started to come in through the Triangle and Try has already getting it. Even some areas of yellow showing up around Brown's Summit and Stokesdale. Some heavier rain, so we'll be in and out of it today. Rain and showers, even the occasional thunderstorm could be some locally heavy rain. Might get to the little bit seventies. That might be a
little bit of a stretch, so we'll see. We may stay in the up sixties in some areas, depends on how much train you get. But we could see an inch maybe more in spots, showers, maybe even a thunderstorm until early tonight. But it gets better as we get into tomorrow. We will clear. We'll be in sunshine. But I got a cool northwest breeze mid upper fifties tomorrow and then Wednesday morning we're back to maybe some heavier jackets that you probably packed the way for the wintertime,
especially on the kids. I'm kind of catering to the little ones. Low to mid thirties, so little chili Wednesday morning, maybe some patchy frost and closer to sixty in the afternoon, and then seventy or close to it on Thursday, and then another frontal come in late week, some more showers. But the weekend right now, if we want to go that far ahead, looks beautiful. Sixty to sixty five with lows in the forties, kind of that deep blue sky
you know you love to see. We're gonna have that tomorrow too, and Wednesday, but instead of this kind of early season humidity and rain that we've had, we'll get Tuesday, Wednesday looking real good. Thursdays not bad after the rain today. End of the week doesn't look great. If the upcoming weekend, if it holds away, looks right now, Casey, it's really nice.
Okay, all right, appreciate it talking an hour, Thank you very much. All right, coming up on the show, Oh I saw dude, did you see the video of what happened to the Hooti rebels over the weekend? Did you see this latest strike? I have some thoughts and if
you have it, I'll describe it to you. Coming up Kcoday radio program and just really our lives have evolved, whether it's the hometown you grew up and being decimated by NAFTA, changes that you've made, industries that you've entered and gotten out of, and what all the you know, the financial stuff really means for people and how they're
approaching how they feel about it. And I think that there was a grave miscalculation among the quote unquote ruling class of how people feel, even people regardless of politics, where they just feel that they have been they have not been for decades, the ones who were in any position to benefit unless they were able to. Really it turns into classes at some point, but at some point also the majority is the lower classes, and so this
is them kind of seizing that ring right now. One of the other evolutions that I remember growing up as a kid who was became news aware during the First Gulf War is being able to watch them stick missiles down chimneys or up camel's butts, right, and then you could just watch that on the news every night, which was kind of crazy, man. Right, It's just like, yeah, do.
You remember those videos?
Do they were just bunker busting bag Dad?
Like, yeah, exactly. Remember that like the black and white we see, like the missiles going up, it looks like fireworks and coming to.
It was crazy, absolutely crazy. So that continues to be a thing. I think I have seen the dumbest one of those, now not on the part of the US military doing the missilin, but rather the people they missiled. How many of you saw the video? You probably heard the story, but how many of you saw the video of US air strike over the weekend? I saw numbers as high as one hundred. This report says seventy. So we'll call it somewhere in between of boothy rebels along
with Iranian Revolutionary Guard consultants or whatever. They needed to have a meeting, right because they've been they've been kind of getting their butts handed to them the last couple of weeks, and for some reason I will never understand, they decide to hold the meeting outside nothing covering over them,
in a giant circle, like they're at some corporate synergy retreat. Right, Well, what do you think happens as they're standing around in their diversity circle or whatever the hell that thing is getting the plans for which ships are going to shoot out and how many drones are going to take out they meet, they all get turned to mist.
I mean it could have been worse. They could have been in like an ex formation instead of a circle.
You're just asking for it that point.
Maybe they were inflatables.
Really you think they were doing the Calai thing.
I don't know.
There's if you longer VI shows them arriving in trucks and getting in that formation. But is how who makes that calla We're gonna get into more of this year just because I'm running up against time, Like like who decided, Hey.
You know what we should do this?
Like they're down in the bunker and they're like, oh, it's very stuffy in here, and Abdul has gas and wow, this is gross. Let's go outside. Well hey he had some bad goat or whatever, I don't know, and they're like, hey, we should hold this outside.
It's so nice.
You know they do that at the Highwoods Building for the one company where they have like the bean bag tournament.
They're all working outside.
Ye have a corn hole and stuff.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. There's one of the other companies the building that does that every year. So but the problem is you're not the people who are do property management or whatever that company is.
You're the hoothy rebels.
So if you stand outside, we can see you, like even the vehicle. Even the North Vietnamese realized that they really had to do their business down in tunnels, as as did Hamas. For God's sakes, right, Look, we don't know what's gonna happen here in about an hour when we get rolling on the stock market. A lot of people have a lot of predictions. I don't expect from
a stock market perspective, it's going to be good. But as the running theme has been on this show, people who are deciding that the only way to evaluate the economy is based on the stock market are the reason largely that we're here and these things are happening right now because long ago the majority of Americans, even those who might have some skin in the game, you know, like four O ones or whatever, have divorced themselves of
the notion that the stock market is financial reality. Why because theirs has been so upturned versus what they may remember growing up. If you grew up in a small town in North Carolina that had some sort of industry pre NAFTA, probably doesn't now, and it's a shell of its former self, and it's not just little ones, you know. One of the things that I really I'm really happy that we did when we were relocating our headquarters for our Triad Radio group was to move it into Downtown
high Point. I know that sounds crazy, and it kind of did to me when our market manager at the time said this is where they were looking. And then I had a chance to go down there. And for those of you who have never been to downtown high Point, North Carolina, it's one of the weirdest places where it was and it's getting but it's getting remarkably better. But it was. I remember going the first time I went to our Triad stations when they first decided to carry
the show in both markets. And I'm there and one of the things I do is I familiarize myself with the areas best I can.
Right.
I don't just go over and do visits. I want to figure out. I want to make friends over there, business acquaintances, play a little golf because I like to play golf and I like losing golf balls. Thank you to several of the courses around the Triad for accommodating my needs and just really get to know the area because a lot of times people broadcast in multiple cities. It's the way that radio is, and and but they don't know anything about where they're broadcasting, and I don't.
I would never want that. So I see triad triangle in this broadcast area as I have an obligation to understand it. And I remember the first time I went to downtown high Point in the middle of a business day and I thought, you know, that's the Twilight Zone episode where everyone just disappears except to do with glasses, right, and he just wants to read books. And it was
that weird fe It was like the Rapture. It happened, and it was because high Point was a city that was built on pre dafta, the current that you know, the current version of it. It's why when you go down there, they had all of these really nice storefronts that were only doing anything what twice a year when he had furniture markets and a few other things.
You have high Point Theater down there and some others.
But really, if you want to talk about a pretty decent side city that was decimated by the offshoring of furniture manufacturing, that's it. Go look at high Point, North Carolina, and they have struggled and they have done things to try to rebuild. And the building that they put up next to the baseball stadium there, which is where our headquarters are now for the Triad, has a full food haul in it. It's got the key key realties in there.
Cold Well Insurance, big insurance thing, and other things are coming back. There's some nice restaurants that have opened down there. They're building a new hotel literally right next to that baseball stadium here as we speak, and they're figuring out ways to have to reinvent themselves. But that was a town that felt the brunt of what was going on, and the communities around it where people may have commuted
in there. Those people give zero flips about whether your stock portfolio as a billionaire is doing okay today because they feel like you sold them out, and to some extent, you did, whether you knew it or not. So that is why, and this is what the media fails to comprehend. And these people ruh, scream and bloody murder like Bill Ackerman and these guys fail to comprehend is they don't
have any sympathy for you. And many, many folks from that are in their fifties all the way down to the current crop coming out are telling themselves, I can't afford this the path to success. And we get in these arguments like you need to pull up your bootstraps,
but the numbers don't reflect that. Even when you just for inflationment, the path to having what you need has been continually chipped away, and even when financial times are good, Ultimately the largest of the profits within a company are bored,
are won by the investors rather than the workers. And I'm not telling you to go full COMMI here, but the expectation is you may not make the investment, but if the company's doing well and they're making more money, then maybe you should pay people more, or maybe things shouldn't outpace the growth of pay because the very same companies are then charging more and people see that and
they don't have sympathy. And the fact that, as I think Kylon News said it, a bunch of protests that looked like AARP conferences were banging around the US over the weekend. I understand why those people are upset. They're on the cusp of retirement or they're in retirement. They're also the ones that went and speculated and bought three air and B properties and have turned Florida into likely
a property value collapse here in the near future. And these big companies, these big, big companies that went in and started buying up all the residential speculating on that and have decimated while they driven up home prices. And if you own a home, that doesn't do you any good.
Either you don't realize the profit from it and you pay higher property tax which have gone up significantly for so many of our listeners, or you do sell it and then you got to buy another home and it chews up any equity because the other.
Home you're buying's more expensive.
The only people benefit from that, or maybe people who lived in the I have a guy from down the street from me and moved from San Francisco Bay Area and was able to buy just with the little bit of equity he had because the home price differential was so different. So those folks are the majority of people, and they've said enough is enough. The grocery prices are out of control. I can't afford to do the extra little things that my parents were able to provide for us,
even though maybe only my dad work. But now we have two incomes in our household and they're willing to watch this happen. What's happening here, You don't have to agree with it, but you need to understand it. And I feel like it should be simple to understand. This is largely the fault of the people who are screaming the loudest right now, and many folks are not going to care.
You know why.
It is the very same portfolio they're looking at, a four to one right now, was what it was a year ago, and you all didn't there was none of this chicken little sky is falling because Biden was in charge all of the expert class.
Nobody cares anymore. They don't believe you because.
You've lied to them, or you've just been fundamentally wrong. In the same way that whatever consultant they hired for the Hoothy Rebels and was like, all right, you know, they brought in some outside consulting and said, all right, we're gonna go outside. We're gonna have a team building exercise. Everybody get in a circle just so some dude can get the most amazing video at the Drone Center. Right because seventy of these idiots decided to stand in a
circle within satellite view, Like how dumb is that? Holy hell man, and just just turn him to mist and now we get to see it times they are a changing. Ross was asking if the guy was wearing headphones? What were you?
Was asking me some weird questions during the break.
Now you're saying, what could have made it better than the you know, the X pattern on the ground of the circle pattern, and probably if they were listening to a walkman while they were bombing?
Right, you have that in the system.
This isle, I am the flight leader of an America's SOULT course sent to.
Recover Colonel Ted Masters, whom you are lawfully holding prisoner.
Why do you have that in the system.
It's amazing to me how much I do have in the system. That just comes in handy. I've known.
First, I thought you were referencing that Russell Clod Crow Drone movie. It just came out, which, by the way, if anyone in the military would watch that did like the whole I wasn't even in the military, And I'm like, there's no way that it runs like that. Like Crow just ignores his CEOs, listens to walkman's while he's bombing people, ignores, refuses to do anything, and just does whatever he wants.
I think I think he'd be surprised that the people in the military would call and I would say probably ninety percent of them would say that what helps them when they fly is their walkman and eighties rock.
And then I thought you were making the Guardians of the Galaxy reference, which that kind of sounded like too. So okay, I don't know, man, but that video's absolutely bonkers. You should check it out. All right, let me grab a call here on the furniture thing, Jim, what's up? Hello, Jim?
Hey, how you doing today?
What can I do for you?
For people who've moved here in the last twenty twenty five years, Back when Kuwait was invaded and you know, there was a lot of destruction and buildings were destroyed, people were harassed that went into their apartments and homes and just trashed the interior of the homes. Well, after they were freed by US, they had to rebuild and one of the things they needed to do is buy a lot of furniture. What did they do? Kuwait put a twenty five percent tariff on the furniture coming in
from the United States, and it did not help. It did not help high Point at all. And before the NAFTA got signed, high Point was doing well enough. They had a Rolls Royce dealership on Main Street.
You know, I think it's still I think they still have one.
Actually, I know seen some high end something or other dealership there. I can't remember which what it was. I was a little surprised to see it.
The next time I go down there, I'll have to take a look.
Yeah again up Main Street past instead of turning right on Eastchester, just keep going north. It's I don't know, not too much further up there by that breakfast joining up there. So how you look it up? Yeah, but to your point, yes, but but you get you brought up another good example. It's also the American consumer sees
stuff like that. They see us go waste blood and treasure in the in the in the deserts of Kuwait in Iraq, and then the immediate thing after it's done is Kuwait to essentially restrict the ability to buy, make it financially restrictive to buy anything from the country that just saved them.
And then people look at that and.
They see it a thousand times over with the way that all of these different countries treat us, and they get mad about it, and they should, they absolutely should. So all right, thank you for the history there, Jim. This is this is why we do what we do. Man Russell, what's up, hey.
Good morning.
Uh, you're absolutely correct about the City high Point. I worked at City hop Point fire for thirty years and I can remember absolutely you can remember going in, going in and duty and seeing just lines and lines of cars going to the industrial area of high Point and after Napaok Place, all these furniture factories just they just disappeared. It was like, you know, we've got areas and iPoint
now that are basically a ghost town. There's hundreds of buildings that are empty that were textile and furniture and you know family members that was in the furniture industry that you know that made really good money because there were highly skilled jobs and uh, NAFTA, NAFTA just absolutely destroyed those industries.
And you know, here's the other canard. Were you as somebody so you worked as a fireman there. I don't know what you made, but uh, you know, middle class salary there were you unable to afford American furniture at that time, it was.
It was expensive, but you were getting the quality that you got with the furniture was was unprecedented.
Now there your.
Union is that you could never manufacture and people be able to purchase it there. And I would reject will because it kinds of more to where you manufactured, and I'm sorry, you could pay wages that'd be very livable wages in cities like Sparta, Tarborough, many of these communities that absolutely got slammed where people would be happy to have those jobs. They would outpace the medium salary there
and the furniture would still be affordable. So I reject this idea that if it's a factured here, it's unaffordable.
Absolutely.
Uh.
If fire Barters worked a Functure market twice a year and one of the biggest complaints that we heard through you know, through personalel there was you know now they're shipping his farms are in now you know they opened the crates and it's busted all the pieces, you know, or it's it needs repair or the quality. So you're absolutely right, it is. It has devastated hick Ory, High Point, Lexington, Thomasville. Those brands are no longer no longer there.
So I knew the Thomasville brand growing up in Wyom like that that was such a huge brand. And so it was really interesting, what I mean to North Carolina, like, oh, that's the thomas still they're talking about were they used to.
There were you know, there were skilled jobs. I mean my fam all my family working furniture, and there were skilled jobs. And today you know those those uh you know those that that skill labor is not available now.
And those folks, it is those folks who are sitting there and they're watching what Trump's doing and they're like, well, it couldn't get any worse, could it? And maybe that we love it, you get the nail on the head.
I mean it's me, you know, America first, and you know, you're you know, you're you know, stock portfolio is great, but you know when you're you know, you know, when you're struggling to uh, you know, put the food on the table because you know, because of your jobs and taken away and and so we're seas. I mean, I don't care about the stock portfolio. It's somebody else. I want, you know, I want to take care of my family.
Yeah, what what is one of the first things that people will cut if they get into financial arrears.
Retirement, retirement, retirement. You don't buy. You don't buy. D was often you don't.
You don't buy.
You know, you don't buy the luxuries that you know what you think of them as luxuries, but you don't you don't have to, you know, have the money to buy those. So but thank you for thank you for bringing them up.
All right, Russell, thanks for the call there. I really appreciate it. And and remember and a lot of these
beefs are just they want to level playing field. So you know, when you go to Europe and you see very few Chevies and Fords, yet you drive around any state in this in the in the States, and there's BMW's and Mercedes everywhere, and you realize that their their or their tariffs so differentially, Like they won't even give American products a fair shake, let them compete abouts the quality of German products in Germany, but they won't do it.
And it is because of their own protectionism. So some of this is less just about an equal playing field financially, but just from an opportunity stick standpoint. Anyway, all right, we can get some more calls on this, I get some more audio to play you, and we finally have an explanation I think makes sense on how that reporter got added speaking of the hoothy rebels to that signal discussion, and it really clicks if you have an iPhone. So hang on, we'll get to it. This is why I
want to have these discussions. So somebody sent me a pretty lengthy message, or sent the show account pretty lengthy message pushing back on they feel that I am mischaracterizing what happened in High Point, and I would only say this, some of it is my perception, but a lot of it is based on what I think people's perception is,
which is what the larger discussion was about. I'm simply trying to explain the psychology of why people are sitting there and ignoring anything that Wall Street folks have to say versus versus what is actually happening, Meaning they're willing to go all right, well, you know what was happening
wasn't working for us. Us our buying power was being decimated, and the perceptions High Point may not be the best example due to its size, but it is undeniable that their communities all across North Carolina and all across this country that absolutely have been decimated because the very lifehood of that city were moved overseas. Okay, but this is why I want to have conversations with people locally, because that's more that's more interesting to me. So Tom wrote, I'm not going to read.
The whole thing.
It's very, very very long, and he says, I've lived in a high Point my whole life. I'm going to paraphrase a little of this. The downtown retail started leaving in the sixties, just like most cities with the advent of shopping malls, and that's not altogether unfair. But the downtown of high Point is also pretty unique in that they have these boutiques for all these furniture manufacturers that largely don't operate all year, so that that is undeniable.
Let's see the twy I don't know what you meant to say here, sir.
The twice of the furniture or the twice a year furniture market was not affected by NAFTA because it is not about retail sales. It's it may be less the market, but it's undeniable that furniture manufacturing in North Carolina and many of it largely around the triad Hickory, Thomasville areas like that is absolutely lower than it was, while the sheer volume of deals that may be struck may be higher, which is what Tom contends here and I don't he
may be right. How does that then impact all of the other ancillary businesses.
Well?
And when it comes to furniture manufacturing, there's still less of it.
However, the industry in and of.
Itself, if it's the sales of it, involves a lot less people to accomplish it. And yes, I recognize that the city of high Point actually has grown the number of businesses it has, and that's because you know, the outlying parts of the city have grown. H Point University has grown, other things have grown there. And so yeah, you get need more cafes, more breakfast places, more places to shop. But it has creeped out of the interior
part of the city as you go out. And yes, the iHeart facility is now right in the middle of the south part of it, whereas most of the commerce is conducted on the far north side of high Point. And in fact, even we were about ten feet outside of high Point with our old offices up on the highway towards the airport there and you know, you get down to chop House, that's high Point right there if you need a visual for people just vaguely familiar with the area. And yeah, there is a lot of growth.
But the hell that mall went out of business. That's on the north side there, what was that a few years ago? The mall that's over of course, the main mall or the high Point mall over by where the Marriotte is where I stay when I come over and visit. The target in the back is still going and I think one or two anchor stores, but that's gone. So yes,
there's been a lot of evolution. However, the one thing that you add in here, sir, that I don't agree with is none of this had anything to do with NAFTA. I've sat with city leaders, you know, with city leaders in high Point and folks that are in charge of like the high Point Theater there, people who have been lifelong residents, who who We've had a lot of conversations about this, and at the very least it did evolve stuff. But I really appreciate your perspective there. So I mean,
that's again that's why we're having this conversation. But the larger part of what I'm breaking down is not necessarily even one hundred percent how I feel about it. But I am recognizing how I feel, the majority of people that I talk to and deal with, the North Carolina feel.
And I think it's undeniable that there are generations of people think and they got a raw deal, and they kind of did because through all this evolution, it was their oxes getting gord And so I'm trying to explain human behavior, but appreciate you sending the message there.
All right, Jamie, what's up?
Hey?
I grew up in Soviet, which is just down the road from High Boyd, and the whole my whole family worked in the furniture industry. Oh my neighbors working in the furniture industry at High Boyd. And it wasn't just the furnature plants and sales. There was little flame shops. There were people that sold material falls, there were people
that sold leather, people to sold nails, recliner mechanisms. All of those are feeder industries too, the furniture industries, and they all went out of business also.
Yeah, especially when you get into like the metallic parts and whatnot. That was one of the first things that they started manufacturing outside of the US.
And that stuff you need to have a state back down.
Well, it's probably look like everything else. There's a lot of complexity to it. But again, this is about public perception.
Right.
You don't have to know the exact numbers in differential of furniture manufacturing from nineteen seventy to twenty twenty, right, but you know because you lived it. It's lived experience with you. It's your friends, family and what you saw, and that's that is what is influencing people. I'm just warning these I'm just warning these people that are further squandering their credibility out there, who are who are very self serving and probably make a crap ton of money
when the stock markets up. That while that's good for you, and most people are willing to cut a wide berth because the American dream is a mindset that we have. The more you train people that the American dream is less achievable and you guys are really the only ones achieving, the more animosity builds, and that's why you get things like this. So I put part of it on them not recognizing that maybe, just maybe, and thanks for the
call there, sir. Some of the decisions, some of the decisions that were made clearly were not in the best interest of the majority of people, and they recognized that. And then we got into the other stuff with like cash for clunkers. Were people one of their green new deal stuff, and they were willing to decimate the ability for people to purchase starter cars. How many of you bought a car for like five six hundred bucks the damn thing maybe ran a couple of years, you bought
another one. It was just the reality of really starting out as a kid or as a young adult man, and those opportunities have gone away. So if we're not willing to talk about the evolution and whether it's been for the for the better or for the worse for the majority of people, then the majority of people are like, all right, you don't want to talk, then we're gonna go do this thing and you're not gonna like it. But maybe you should have listened, Maira, go right ahead.
Hey, Casey, First of all, I congratulate and thank you for drawing attention to this in the Triad area. I have worked in high Point for thirty eight years, and we are suppliers to the furniture industry, so we supplied a specialty material that a lot of these contractors that then in turn sold Lexington, Thomasville, Baker, et cetera parts for predominantly upholstered things. And so I lived the destruction
or the removal of all these businesses. Now my company was able to look for other outlets to sell material and we have survived. But the devastation to the furniture industry and all the people and impacted it was horrible to watch. If it personally, I think High Point University saved high Point. There are a lot more places to eat, like you were saying earlier than there were when we were in our heyday with the furniture industry. But it's
it's just been devastating. And a lot of people have been asking me how I feel about these tariffs, and I've been hey, even the playing field, it's ridiculous. So thank you for doing this today.
Well, it's and it's good because I have equal number of people that are happy and equal that are irritated, and that's probably a good conversation and one that clearly wasn't happening before. So it is a little weird though. It is a little weird because I drive it around high Points just like, all of a sudden, I see the high Point University signs on, Like, am I back
on the campus? What the heck happened? Just because they've they've bought like they bought the ball right or part of the mall like high Point University.
I think I think they are part of the mall. I'm not really sure. My son went to West Westland, which is right across the street.
From the mall.
Yeah, and I know that that, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know right, so I mean high Point just I mean you can tell the purple placards and colors are everywhere. But it's brought businesses to town. The baseball soccer is there now, right, We've got a yeah, I guess you'd call it like an MLA.
I mean, what do you call it?
A farm soccer team? Now that just came to town and a lot of people are excited about that. Look, manufacturing is is how rural Americans can get really good jobs with really good benefits. And that's who was hurt by the pull up of the furniture industry. I'm in sales. I'm a chemist. I was really I mean I saw these people every day. They were my clients, they were my friends, right, and they lost their careers. It's just so sad. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.
I saw last week on Twitter there was a company that was pulling up the roots. I think it was from Canada and bringing furniture back to North Carolina.
And I celebright and.
Then and then the same time, right, and then I saw a woman or another post on Twitter sorry that said I'm devastated. I'm in the furniture industry and this is going to destroy us. And I'm thinking to myself, either you aren't alive in the late eighties to know what happened, or you have blinders on because this has already happened once.
So yeah, and that was a company. Just sorry, my ride. I'm really tight on time, but I really appreciate your phone called. The company in question was based out of British Columbia. They did have small amount of manufacturing in North Carolina and they basically moved a bunch of it down because of what's going on. So we'll see if there's more of that. I appreciate the call. Race stagic from the weather Channel with a quick look at a I guess that we're positive week coming. No, yeah, I mean,
but yeah, I'm credibly hopeful. Okaytimistic, mister negative.
Yeah yeah, that's me always right.
Well, it gets worse before it gets better.
Already start to see some of the heavier rain come across I seventy seven as we speak, and heading east into the Try had already seen some heavier rain showers
through Forsyth. So be prepared to get titty to spread in here this morning, slaw your roll to do not cross water covered roadways and all that turn around, don't drown, don't want a hydroplane, and all that low seventies today For most of us tonight, the showers and thunderstorms will come to an end, so we don't think severe storms, but a stronger storm or two may produce some not only heavier rainfall, but maybe some gusty winds. So what this rain coming in is certainly gonna get worse before
we get better. And then finally this front's going to go through, there'll be some changes, big changes in temperatures. Beautiful day Tuesday Wednesday, probably mid upper fifties to near sixty each day. Low's though by Wednesday morning in the low to mid thirties. Thursday drive before we get more showers Friday, and already looking forward to the weekend.
Case he looks sunny and pleasant.
Love it, Thank you. We'll talk tomorrow and we'll come back with Jeff Bellinger, who may be on suicide watch. Next, go to Jeff Bellinger up on Wall Street where I'm sure.
It's going to be a slow what's up, Jeff.
Yes, lo Ande, that's right, Good morning, Casey. The futures indicate last week's market misery will continue, though there's been some improvement in the futures as we get closer to the opening bell Believe it or not, The adow is down seven hundred and twenty two points, and that is an improvement from earlier on. Now jpmore can Chase. CEO Jamie Diamond has joined the Coorus, urging President Trump to
work toward an early resolution to the teriff issue. Some Wall Street analysts see signs that stocks are nearing a floor that could be good news, and the bets are increasing that the Fed will step in with interest rate cuts to try to keep the economy.
Out of recession.
So far, though President Trump and his administration officials are digging in saying tariffs on American trading partners will remain in place and will lead to an economic boom. Eventually, Apple reportedly moved quickly to avoid tariffs on products that were assembled overseas. The Times of India sas it was told by senior in officials that Apple shipped five planeloads of iPhones and other technology products from India to the
US at the end of last month. There is late word Republic Airlines has agreed to take over troubled Mesa Air. It's an all stock transaction. The combined carrier will have a fleet of more than three hundred regional jets. Republic CEO Brian Bedford has been nominated by President Trump to take over as head of the Federal Aviation Administration and KSE movie theater operators finally have something to celebrate. A
Minecraft movie debuted in first place over the weekend. The Warner Brothers Discovery film took in one hundred and fifty seven million dollars. It was the biggest opening weekend for any movie so far this year.
Casey, how mad do you think Disney is? After the tank snow White and a Minecraft movie just quadrupled them up. Holy cow.
All right, thanks Jeff appreciation. Okay, have a good day.
All right, there you go, Jeff Bellinger. Real quick, I mentioned that we may know how that all of that signal thing happened with the name you guys. I know it works on iPhone. I'm not sure Android. I don't have an Android, but on iPhone there's suggested contacts. So if somebody sends me an email and it's got a signature in it and a phone number, so it's like, you know, somebody I work with so and so the next time that I may go interact with that person
in the contacts. If you allow it to scour your email for potential contacts, it may suggest creating a contact and be able to extract the phone numbers and email addresses into a contact. I'm sure some of you may have used that feature. That's how signal works. And so they suspect or they they've traced it back to an email where somebody who was supposed to be on that meeting emailed Waltz saying, hey, this reporter reached out to you. Here's their email address that was in the body of
the email. So when Waltz's staff member created the contact for the other staff member, it incorrect assigned that phone number because I had the guy's phone number and email address to a contact within signal, which was then inadvertently added. Does that make sense? So it actually makes perfect sense to me. But still you gotta you need to do better than that, clearly. But the technology is explained and
real quickly. This U a Rhode Island man is crediting Chick fil A for saving his life, claiming that he lost one hundred and thirty two pounds eating nothing but Chick fil A every day for over a year. And so they're given a bunch of pub We're not going to do this again, are we We're not gonna I mean, good for this dude. And I got like, we're not. If you're Chick fil A, there's no way you're making this guy the face of your marketing. I mean maybe that one time.
Like a background check first, right, check all the.
Hard drives ever ever ever, because and it's too bad because if that you know that it is one of those stories that's a great marketing opera oor tunity. It's just you know that one guy, that one time, who was buying children to rape with his subway dollars kind of probably ruined that for everybody, so